Marty34

Don't write Jimenez off yet. Navy Seals are 50/50 to pass Orioles physicals.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Feb 17, 2014 -> 01:31 PM) As much as I LOVE the movie "Brewster's Millions," that's not how money works in real life. If you save money today, you can spend it tomorrow. Sure, but as we have gone over before, next year the price goes up for a similar asset. It doesn't matter anyway because there will be another excuse not to spend money next offseason.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Feb 17, 2014 -> 03:34 PM) Same thing was said about Dominic Brown and Jason Heyward What difference does that make? The Sox would have to put Sale on the market to get Bogaerts.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Feb 17, 2014 -> 12:50 PM) Actually, the idea of letting Harry go doesn't keep getting worse - it already stands as the worst blunder (among many) of the Reinsdorf era. The very notion that the Sox had both Harry Caray AND WGN in '81, right at the onset of 'GN becoming the national superstation it would become, and then fluttered both away at the end of that year, frustrates me to this very day. There was no better salesman for the game than Harry, and with the power of 'GN behind him, I often wonder what the state of the franchise would be today if he had remained a Sox broadcaster on the superstation. I also wonder where the Cubs would be today without having the benefit of Harry selling Wrigley Field all of those years, instead being led by the more bland broadcasting stylings of one Milo Hamilton. We'll never know, but I do wonder. The '83 team with Harry competing against Milo and the Cubs would have cemented the Sox as the team even after the '84 season for the Cubs. The only thing I wonder is how much did Harry orchestrate the move to the Cubs. Tribune offering WGN, Budweiser money, etc ....

QUOTE (Dunt @ Feb 17, 2014 -> 12:21 PM) Anybody know where to watch Hoffman's game against Virginia this friday? Game is scheduled to be on http://www.virginiasports.com/allaccess/ Friday 3p eastern. $6.95 for a monthly pass.

QUOTE (shakes @ Feb 17, 2014 -> 10:23 AM) Even Google's biggest failures were based in more intelligent design than this project. Name me one Google project that had three bad ideas and spit them out on repeat in a thousand different iterations? I've found that when posters on Soxtalk think an idea is bad it's usually not.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Feb 17, 2014 -> 10:20 AM) I tell you what. In all mah time, I've never seen a squad that looked this good in Spring Training. Robin's really got em fired up. The last time I felt like this Stone Pony was before 2005, datgummit. My absolute favorite is: I'm going to tell you what the job Buddy Bell has done . . . they got some talent over on that minor league field Stone Pony.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Feb 17, 2014 -> 06:16 AM) Thing is, it's not even a fair fight. It's like an old WWF match where the Road Warriors are up against a couple jobbers. The announcers are pleading with the referee to just step in and stop the fight. I agree. The mods are severely outmatched here.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 08:11 PM) As opposed to financing quickly depreciating assets? Brilliant. Doesn't matter the Sox can't swing $5M in debt. Therefore the whole Tanaka pursuit was a charade, publicity stunt.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 07:47 PM) You could have just said "I don't have anything creative in reply" and gotten the message across just as well. It's difficult to reply to something as laughable as you wrote. You do not believe the White Sox could swing going $5M in debt even though they have an asset worth conservatively $600M and has appreciated ~2300% from its purchase price. Stay away from teaching finance to anyone above the age of 5.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 05:59 PM) Because they went with a person who would take under-slot money at that point and because you couldn't be bothered to know how the MLB draft works. Would you be infavor of the White Sox drafting someone in 2014 with the #3 pick that they could sign for $5 million under slot in order to allocate that money to the MLB team? I advocate the Sox take a $5M loss to build up the system and not take it from the big league payroll.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 05:54 PM) Because they have the 3rd pick and if they were to draft someone who wouldn't use up their slot spending you'd declare the draft a disaster like you did last year? I declared the Jacob May pick a disaster.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 05:42 PM) >$10 million was saved by trading away Thornton, Peavy, and Rios during the 2013 season. An extra $5 million will be put into draft and international talent spending beyond what was spent last year. $10 million goes to Jose Dariel Abreu's signing bonus, which is money the Sox will pay out that isn't being accounted for on the budget lists but is . Thus, >$25 million of that difference is quite fully accounted for. The rest of that I will grant as of right now stands as a salary cut, but of course, they also cut ticket prices last year and then still had erosion of ticket sales due to the team being awful, and as we've pointed out repeatedly, that money would be much more effectively spent next offseason when we have a better idea of the team's needs than right now on a "the kids can play" type team. Why are they taking $5M+ from the major league payroll to pay for the draft? As far as next year goes, I'm sure there will be another reason not to spend money. That has been the case with this organization for quite some time.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Dec 17, 2013 -> 11:54 PM) I've really enjoyed watching these old games, so thanks to those who brought them forward here to everyone's attention. When I first started watching Sox games, it was when Harry Caray and Jimmy Piersall were calling the games, so it's been a nice trip down memory lane. I can't help, though, with so many of these old games coming from 1981, when Harry Caray called Sox games for his one and only season with the Sox on WGN, being reminded of the lost opportunity for the franchise of having Harry sell the Sox on WGN at that point in time. Good grief - the idea of Harry calling the 1983 team over WGN? The Sox conceivably could have turned out to be the national phenomenon Caray's next team would become. Instead, they chose to go the very ill-conceived "pay tv" route back then, which catapulted Caray to the north side, and the rest, as they say, is history. the more old clips I hear of Harry the worse the idea of letting him go becomes. Keep Harry, no Hawk as GM, but Harry probably runs La Russa out of town.

QUOTE (vegandork @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 12:58 PM) They've also moved away from big deals. One has to wonder what's the plan for when Lester leaves. They're going to be in the market for a sixth starter anyway. They'd probably pay a heavy price for a young, controllable guy like Quintana. Interesting idea, I'd like to see what they'd be willing to give for Quintana.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 04:05 PM) I agree. I can't think of a single example of the White Sox turning their available funds into players. Not a single one. What about the other $35M missing from last years payroll?

2 minute clip of Steve Trout pitching to Miguel Dilone leading of the second game of a DH 8/18/80. Todd Cruz makes a nice play and Harry sells it. Harry even in his late prime was unmatched. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLs7UTvR65I

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 03:31 PM) And you shockingly nitpick every little thing about the team you're a fan of, like you always do. Talk about the poster child of pessimism. Things ain't exactly great these days over on 35th Roostifer.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 03:28 PM) I don't see how you can say "I don't care about injury" when that obviously limits the trade value of a player. It's not like they could have waited till later, he was a FA at the end of the season. That's...dude, Marty, you gotta stop tilting at windmills. And call Sancho "TUC" Panza off, too. They kept together a team that would lose 99 games. They received mostly salary relief for their best trading chips and now people are ok with playing Dunn to get more salary relief at the expense of devaluing one of the few trade chips. I don't get it.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 03:24 PM) His point by including Crain was that the White Sox should have known he'd get hurt and benched him in June when he was pitching well, like no team ever does (but he spent July insisting they should have done so). And you shockingly took to the organization's defense.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 03:24 PM) I know. What use is salary relief? You can't turn money into players. Well, they haven't.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 03:12 PM) WTF are you talking about? Crain was injured so he didn't get much in trade, but had to be sold off anyway. What is your point? Also, Alex Rios was once as despised as Adam Dunn. Not to call anyone in particular out, but: http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=82553 Yet they eventually traded him along with his salary for a replacement-level youngster. How is that bad asset management? Crain's dubious usage cost them perhaps their best trade chip, but that's besides the point. The point is whether through injury or not the Sox got little (other than salary relief) in return for their best trading chips sans Sale at the end of the 2012 season.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 03:05 PM) Thornton netted Jacobs who was part of the Eaton trade. Alex Rios was a complete goat for multiple seasons and was somewhat overpaid, so you can't expect to get a lot for him. Crain was injured. This is a bad post, but I'll pretend your premise is right. Can the Sox afford to trade their tradeable players? Because all accounts are that they are attempting to do just that. I don't care if they were injured or not. They don't need salary relief, they need players.

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Feb 16, 2014 -> 03:02 PM) Floyd, Crain and Thornton had nothing to do with Leury and Avi. Floyd became a FA, Crain was traded to TB and Thornton was traded to Boston before Peavy in a completely separate deal. Where do you come up with this stuff? Bad asset management, Roostifer.

The Sox turned Gavin Floyd, Jake Peavy, Alex Rios, Jessie Crain, and Matt Thornton into Leury and Avisail Garcia. That was a bad job of asset management. They can't afford to devalue their tradable players in order to save money.